ALL THE RAGE (writer: T.M. Frazier)(34)

He shook his head. “Now where would the fun be in that?” he asked, flashing me a wink and his customary big smile.

“We walked up the now empty beach. Nolan kicked off his flip-flops and carried them. I did the same. The cold wet sand squished between my toes. Music playing in the distance floated over the water along with muffled voices and the occasional burst of laughter coming from high up on one of the condo balconies. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Nolan asked.

“Because your smile is ridiculous.”

He chuckled and pulled me closer so that my shoulder was almost touching his bicep as we walked. “This smile?” he said, flashing it again, this time crossing his eyes.

I laughed. “Yeah, that would be the smile in question.”

“Fuck no, this smile is anything but ridiculous, I mean, have you seen these dimples?” he asked, pointing to his cheek where said dimple was on full display.

Nolan lifted our hands and guided me to step over a piece of driftwood. “Oh yes, I’ve certainly seen the dimple. In fact, I think it’s the dimple that makes it all the more ridiculous,” I added, looking away so he wouldn’t see my own smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

“Well, you might think it’s ridiculous, but I’m positive that if I’d been drafted into the NHL that the sponsors wouldn’t have shared your opinion. You’d probably be seeing this mug all over toothpaste commercials or billboards.” Nolan paused and turned to look over the water. Our walk became silent for a few moments and I knew he was reflecting on his missed opportunity.

“You know what I would do if I saw you on a billboard?” I asked, trying to pull him out of his thoughts.

“Swoon?” Nolan asked, and just like that he was back.

I bit the side of my thumb. “Heck no. I’d climb up with a can of spray paint and graffiti the entire thing. I’d make one of your teeth black, I’d make the dimple into a huge mole, and I’d give you an eye patch.” I covered my eye with my hand to demonstrate. “You would be a giant, ridiculous, smiling pirate.”

I thought he’d laugh but instead Nolan stopped and pulled me close to him. With a very serious face, he reached out and pushed a stray hair behind my ear. “Rage, the hockey thing probably won’t ever happen for me. I know that, but I’m gonna try again anyway. You have to promise me something, though.”

“What’s that?” I asked, craning my neck to better see his face.

“You have to promise me that if by some miracle I do get drafted some day, and you really do see this ugly mug on a billboard somewhere, that you will make good on your promise to make me into a pirate,” Nolan said, stepping away from me, the breeze taking the place of his large body spreading coolness where his heat had just been.

“Consider it done,” I agreed. We resumed our walk. A part of me really hoped his hockey dreams would come true some day.

But he doesn’t have a someday, I reminded myself.

“Why did you suddenly get so quiet?” Nolan asked.

“Just wondering where you’re taking me.”

“Our first stop is right here,” he said, pointing up the beach.

I looked to where he was pointing, but in the dark all I could see were shadows of the buildings lining the beach and lights from the occasional window. “I don’t see anything,” I said. He pulled me away from the water’s edge to where four wooden stakes were hammered into the sand. Yellow tape connected them at the top, roping off the small area. In the middle of the stakes, in the sand…was nothing.

Nolan crouched down with his injured leg stretched out in front of him, looking over the empty patch of sand. “I don’t get it,” I whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” Nolan asked in a regular tone.

I knelt down next to him and continued to whisper. “I don’t know. This kind of just seemed like a whispering situation.”

“Voices don’t bother them, although it would bother the mama if she was trying to nest, but the eggs have already been laid.” Nolan reached into his pocket for his phone and clicked on the flashlight app. He held the light up to a rectangular yellow sign tacked to one of the wooden stakes.

DO NOT DISTURB

SEA TURTLE NEST

VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO

FINES AND/OR

IMPRISONMENT

“Sea turtles…” I breathed, finally understanding what I was looking at.

Nolan stood back up and I followed. We both stared down into the middle of the nest, which looked no different than any other patch of sand on the beach. Nolan glanced up the beach, toward the few lights still on at even though it was only barely 8 p.m. “Honestly, I was surprised the mama even nested here this season with all the construction and people around. Doesn’t take much to spook them.”

“They get scared?” I asked, circling the stakes as if I could somehow see into the nest from a better angle.

Nolan followed close behind and explained, “Yeah, people want to take pictures of them coming up to shore, or kids want to hop over them and touch their shells. Even a few forgotten beach chairs in their way could make them turn tail and run. The circumstances have to be damn near perfect for them to make their nest and lay their eggs.” He leaned over me, his chin resting on the space between my shoulder and neck. I pretended to be unaffected when his lips brushed across my skin as he spoke. He pointed into the sand. “That must have been one determined turtle to nest in all this,” he said, standing back up straight and jerking his chin up toward the high-rise hotel under construction behind us. A tall, dark grey shadow with two cranes at least fifteen stories high standing still on either side of the building like two sleeping brontosauruses. “When faced with all this, she still chose to stay. Must have nested here before. Or been born here. This might be home to her. Brave turtle.”